On 4th November 1605, 36 barrels of gunpowder were discovered beneath the House of Lords. The plotters were Catholic militants. ibid.
In the early 1590s more than a hundred Scottish witches had gone on trial. ibid.
Macbeth and his wife lust for the throne ... His manhood is at stake ... ‘Screw thy courage to the sticking place’ [Lady Macbeth]. ibid.
Madness. Insomnia. Suicide. ibid.
What Shakespeare is obsessed with is the tension between humanity and the delusions of majesty. ibid.
There are many shocking things in Lear: the eye-gouging the most heartbreaking ending in all of Shakespeare. ibid.
Lear: He is on the torturing road to understanding. But the man who must help him on his journey is his Fool. Once again Shakespeare dares to make comparisons. ibid.
The Fool is merciless. ibid.
Shakespeare reveals our common humanity ... The equality of suffering. ibid.
Welcome to Italy. Shakespeare’s Italy. Francesco da Mosto, Shakespeare in Italy I BBC 2012
In Shakespeare’s time the heart of the Renaissance. ibid.
And of course politics and power. ibid.
He set more than a third of them here. ibid.
He painted a picture of Italy as the land of love. ibid.
Did he come here? ... In 1585 at the age of twenty-one Shakespeare just vanished from history for seven long years. ibid.
Shakespeare seems to know everything there is to know about Venice. ibid.
Can anyone be trusted with power? ibid.
The perfect place to tell dangerous stories and survive to write another day. Francesco da Mosto, Shakespeare in Italy II: Land of Fortune BBC 2012
It was Italy that saved Shakespeare from the Tower of London. ibid.
The Merchant of Venice: the climax of the play is a trial at the Doge’s Palace. ibid.
Julius Caesar: these were treacherous subjects to explore. ibid.
The Tempest: he would question the very forces of Nature. ibid.
King James was pursuing a ferocious campaign against witchcraft. ibid.
Shakespeare’s genius was to make Italy his home whenever he needed. ibid.
In the glory days of the Elizabethan theatre two playhouses were fighting it out for writers and audiences. North of the city was the Curtain Theatre, home of England’s most famous actor, Richard Burbage. Across the river was the competition, built by Philip Henslowe, a businessman with a cash flow problem – the Rose. Shakespeare in Love 1998 starring Gwyneth Paltrow & Joseph Fiennes & Geoffrey Rush & Colin Firth & Ben Affleck & Judi Dench & Simon Callow & Jim Carter & Martin Clunes et al, director John Madden, caption
I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once. ibid. boatman to Shakespeare
She’s been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you. ibid. Elizabeth to Wessex
Marlowe is dead. Stabbed. ibid. messenger
Puking – he liked strong sounds of that sort. Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare, Sky Arts 2013
This is the language of politics and power … This is the world that little William and his classmates were being prepared for. ibid.
William Shakespeare was eighteen when he got married … whose bride was pregnant: Anne Hathaway. ibid.
William and Anne stayed together for the remaining thirty-three years of his life, but there were no more children [after twins]. ibid.
The Lord Chamberlain’s men as they now styled themselves became shareholders in the new company. ibid.
And then he has that dark side in him which must frighten the audience ... There’s something diabolical in him. Discovering Hamlet, Christopher Plummer, Sky Arts 2014
You can play it violently different ways. ibid. David Tennant
I discovered its importance by doing it. ibid. Jonathan Miller
To have a friend like that would be awful. ibid. Franco Zeffirelli
It’s a deeply interesting story. ibid. Jonathan Miller
He is not ripe for the act he is asked to perform ... The tragedy is not that Hamlet dies, it’s that he dies exactly when he is ready to become a great king. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 13/13: The Long Childhood, BBC 1973
In Hamlet, Shakespeare has revealed too much of himself. Frank Harris, author The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story, 1911
We’re on edge through the play of Hamlet. Professor Jonathan Bate
Shakespeare – the nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God. Laurence Olivier
The tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind. Laurence Olivier, introduction to screen adaptation of Hamlet 1948
The victory fell on us. Macbeth 2001 starring Antony Sher & Harriet Walter, director Gregory Doran Roundhouse London, report of battle
So foul and fair a day I have not seen. ibid. Macbeth back from battle
Nothing is but what is not. ibid. Macbeth
You shall put this night’s great business into my dispatch. ibid. Lady Macbeth
If it were done when ’tis done, then it were well it were done quickly. ibid. Macbeth
There’s husbandry in heaven. ibid. Macbeth
There’s daggers in men’s smiles. ibid. Donalbain
Better be with the dead. ibid. Macbeth
Was my father a traitor, mother? What is a traitor? ibid. boy
Life’s but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ibid. Macbeth
When shall we three meet again? Macbeth 1948 starring Orson Welles & Jeanette Nolan & Dan O'Herlihy & Peggy Webber & Roddy McDowall & Edgar Barrier & Alan Napier & Erskine Sanford & Christopher Welles & Jerry Farber & John Dierkes et al, director Orson Welles, witches' opening scene
Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it. ibid. Malcolm
4Let us make medicines of our great revenge. ibid. Malcolm
Troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from her rest. ibid. doctor
What’s done cannot be undone. ibid. Lady Macbeth
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ibid. Macbeth
Lady Macbeth raised the question of what a man is. Professor Marjorie Garber
It is by far the shortest of the tragedies ... there is evidence ... that there have been cuts in the text, as well as interpolations. Kenneth Muir, The Arden Shakespeare: Macbeth
Amneus [The Mystery of Macbeth 1983] is on stronger ground when he lists nineteen unsolved problems connected with the play, which, he thinks, are due to the cuts and alterations made in 1606. ibid.
Dover Wilson argued that a number of scenes must have been cut. ibid.
‘The whole atmosphere of treason and distrust which informs Macbeth found a parallel in the England of the Gunpowder Plot, so that a passing reference serves to define an attitude both to the Macbeth regime and to contemporary affairs’. ibid. S L Bethel, Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatist Tradition 1944
This contrast between desire and act is repeated several times in the course of the play. ibid.